Language Lounge: Vanasõnad from Virumaa

VINCENT TEETSOV

Across Lääne-Virumaa and Ida-Virumaa, two counties that used to be one under the name Virumaa, there is a proliferation of local vanasõnad (“proverbs”), balanced with an awareness of linguistic impact from Finnish and Russian.

Anneli Baran-Grzybek (Senior Researcher at the Estonian Literary Museum) gathered together a large collection of these. Together with the research of folklore scholar Arvo Krikmann, this collection indicates that Virumaa has among the largest number of their own vanasõnad of any region in Estonia. Many of these are connected to folk songs.

Among the collection of sayings that spring up and vary from town to town, a few from the former kihelkond (“parish”) of Viru-Jaagupi stood out as connecting to sayings that we use in English, along with a few that maybe we need to import into our conversations:

A book of vanasõnad.

Photo: vanajahea.ee

Kolm on iga asjale hea. (“Three is good for everything.”): Three is an auspicious number. It plays a part in spiritual beliefs, with the trinity in Christianity for example. The symbol of the triskelion ap­peared in Ancient Greece, and also emblazons the flag of the Isle of Man. The number three shapes science and engineering in the form of the triangle.

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